


Wabisabi

by nikkaria



Category: DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Kind of AU?, M/M, Past Drug Use, Post-Anime, Scars, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:02:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3758887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkaria/pseuds/nikkaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They aren't perfect, and they aren't human. They're just what they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wabisabi

**Author's Note:**

> "wabisabi" (侘寂): the way of living through appreciation for imperfection, for transience, and for what is.  
> this is pretty disjointed, but hopefully in a way that gets across meaning. the fact that both clear and aoba aren't conventional human beings and have their pasts in shadow has always tickled my plotbunny side. ♡ the timeline and anime vs. game might seem kind of indiscernible, so to clarify, this is some clear/aoba post-anime. ren is human, aoba realizes his own raison d'etre, etc., but clear is brought into the family similarly to his good route in-game.

Clear wondered why he deserved such a loving family in the first place.

Looking in the mirror, he saw not a boy whose life revolved around love and compassion, but a murderous, manipulative robot made solely for Toue's discretion and desires. It was sickening, the knowledge of aluminum and fuel beneath a facade of skin and bone. Counterfeit, that was the word — He was a counterfeit human, a knockoff of the real thing, an existence whose beauty was beyond his own _ugly_ disfigurement of a life.

_Who was he?_ Who was he to disgrace what Mother Nature gave to the world with his own repulsive, undeserved breath? He was a shell, a soulless vessel made to imitate others, and he hated it. He hated being in his own skin. He hated being in his own _mind_ , even. Why? Why did he have to be created? Why did Toue have to be born? Why _anything_ , really? The pessimism came farther and farther away each time, but it still _came_. It was still there, unrelenting, gnawing at his insides as nails dug into his skin and dragged down the sides of his arms. Naked and bathed in moonlight, a sight Aoba would probably assure him was perfectly fine, was currently his nightmare, steeped in his own self-hatred. He wanted to vomit.

Aoba treated him so specially as if an angel, when he himself knew that he was the wolf in sheep's clothing, his deepest, darkest side ignored in every day life as he tried to become one with the people he loved.

It wasn't easy to forget his own inhumanity.

  


* * *

  


Wrestling with Aoba for the popcorn nearly removed any and all insecurities from his mind. The movie they were watching — some kind of cheesy, campy romcom — was just background noise now. Clear was getting a little stubborn, a true popcorn hog as he held the container to his chest like a quarterback barreling for a touchdown. He wasn't so hungry, but the reactions his partner made, flailing for him and spilling words that would even make Tae blush, made the struggle worthwhile. He'd even dare say that was why he was being such a brat in the first place.

They always did love messing with each other.

Amidst laughter and cursing had Aoba finally retrieved his fill, and the two settled back down just in time for the last half of the movie, trailing into the supposed climax. Really, it was just riffing fodder, and the two had gotten into it, the confused Clear with inquiries and the snarky Aoba with his own remarks. In the grand old time they were having, he'd practically forgotten all about his own lack of self-love. He saw no need to think of that anymore, no need to spoil the treasured time he held with his dearest friend.

  


* * *

  


About that, though—

Clear was sure that friends weren't supposed to be doing the things they did, but they never really found it in themselves to care. Labels and titles and typical romance somehow never formed with them. When it came to their behavior, were they ever really friends or lovers to begin with? Neither of them were sure, and never of them stressed themselves, let alone each other, over the matter. They knew what was really important.

What _was_ important, anyway? What wasn't would have been a better question. They'd started off smooth with nothing but familial hugs and sweet exchanges. That had soon transformed into hand-holding, something neither of them realized until a sudden jolt of comprehension struck them with fingers tangled about each other. Pulling apart as if the two had burned each other on their own body heat, they'd stared in sheer terror, fearing any sort of negative reaction or embarrassing comment, and yet— _nothing_. With unfounded fears did they muster enough bravery to try it again, the intimate touch igniting something in both of them, something one another was still not privy to.

That was only the beginning. The next shift came one night when Clear roused to the sound of broken, hushed sobbing, obviously meant to be hidden. They were harsh sniffles and choking noises, just enough to indicate that something wasn't just wrong, but _horribly_ wrong. Rushing to the bed adjacent from his futon, he found Aoba a right wreck, tear-stained cheeks pressed into the solace of his pillow. Soon enough, they pressed into his chest, sensing the whirr of his artificial heart as he cried his eyes out, blubbering something about being unable to fix him, being unable to _see him again_ in his sleeplessness. He hadn't left the bed that night, staying with him and falling asleep with him in his arms.

Clear hadn't foreseen the domino effect of wanting to stay with him in bed every single night from there, but it was in no way unwelcome. At first, since a most embarrassing time with Aoba losing his mind in his arms, they were distant. They both kept to themselves, an unease settling upon them, Aoba for his loss of dignity and Clear for fear of disturbing him. The rocky hurdle was soon annihilated with one arm slung around the waist of another — they couldn't remember whose — which set off yet another chain reaction. They soon became a tangle of limbs and took comfort in one another's presence, lulled to sleep by their own body heat and, on occasion, Clear's singing.  
After a few months of this, they shared their first kiss together.

It was a little clumsy and without much forethought. Clear simply saw it fit to kiss him goodnight in a haze, drunken from a night spent with Mizuki and a couple of cans of chuhai. They were both out of sorts and couldn't find the ability to care. Soon enough, one single kiss, teeth clashing and noses bumping, turned into a full-blown makeout session, Clear on top of Aoba as he drove him into a frenzy of sensual desire. Not much came of the night beyond what they'd done with their clothed bodies, hips gyrating into one another and lazily dry-humping each other until they couldn't stay conscious any more.

They'd enjoyed their proper first time together the next night.

Fumbling here was to be expected. Aoba was by no means a virgin, but whatever he'd done came from foggy memories of his days as a teenager. Clear, on the other hand, was completely isolated from sexual activity until that day. Not once had he masturbated in a fit of lust, and not a single time had he dared to watch the DVDs Mizuki hid under his mattress. He'd once been offered a good time by a patron at the bar, only for him to feverishly shake his head with a meek little squeak.

With Aoba, though—

With Aoba, it was so _different_. He wanted him. He _needed_ him. Amidst ardent heat and desperate kisses, they laughed, both at their own mistakes and their swelling happiness. Muffled giggles into each other's lips complimented the gentle, passionate rock of their bodies, the bed creaking beneath their combined weight. Slow, emotional sex turned into a frenzy in moments, raw desire thrusting them into oblivion as they howled and moaned and tugged at each other's hair. They made a mess of themselves in the throes of their sex, stinking of sweat and semen, but they just didn't care.

Were they in love? Were they just friends? Neither of them knew, and neither of them stressed to find out. They found contentment in what they held together, something inexplicably harmonious. It needn't be labelled or addressed in a certain way other than with their mutual, warm acceptance.

They were perfectly pleased with this life.

  


* * *

  


They'd fallen asleep on the couch, it seemed.

When the android stirred, he ascertained the time with a glance to his Coil. Three in the morning. A blanket from some mysterious source had been draped over himself, and with groggy realization did he discover that it was Aoba's bedsheet. Glancing to one side at the television stand, he found foggy disgust at popcorn having flung all the way there, littering the surface and ground with kernels and buttery chunks. _He'd have to clean that in the morning._

All other thought vanished when he looked beside his left, noticing blue hair draped over his shoulder. His partner's breath was just faintly audible to his own sensitive ears. With lashes framing closed eyelids did Clear determine that he was peacefully asleep. His nostrils flared with every release of air, and his lips gave an occasional twitch. _It was really cute._

He had no reason to disturb him. His throat was dry and his eyes were crusty, but he never thought to move, not even to tend to himself. He didn't want to wake him. Instead, he sat in his own tranquility and smiled, watching his precious angel's face as he dreamed.

_"What does Aoba-san dream about?"_ he wondered silently. Dreams and wishes and hopes in his mind like a bottle of colored sand— Were any of his dreams of _him_? Did he think of him while he dozed off? Thoughts were shaken with the sensation of Aoba shifting and pressing into his body, an arm lazily flung over his lap. He'd stifled a small noise, a surprised reaction upon the unconscious action, before melting into a puddle of goo.

He dreamed of him.

Didn't he?

  


* * *

  


He'd found Aoba in front of the mirror the next time he woke. Four in the morning, not a soul in sight, the other side of the couch emptier than it was before. Clear searched for him until he reached their shared room, catching his half-naked body in the pale moonlight, a far more stunning sight than his own body in the same scene.

That was when he saw them. _Scars._ Marks of his older days as a rambunctious teenager, lost in mind and in heart from loneliness and abandonment. There was the gash on his chest that he got in a bar fight, the stab wound on his thigh that sent Tae into a tizzy, the marks on his arms from various instances, discolored and misshapen skin from a drug injection gone wrong, a failed self-piercing attempt's mark on his belly button—

He was so tragically, beautifully imperfect.

He couldn't help but hold him from behind, laying his chin atop his crown and seeking any disturbance, but there was none. On Aoba's face were only puzzling stares and curious glances. He wasn't uncomfortable with the many signs of disarray on his body, and he wasn't disconcerted with his own prior mistakes that he couldn't even remember. He was forever locked in a mystery of his own life that even he himself could not decipher, even with the knowledge of his general past.

"You know," he suddenly spoke after a moment of solemn, yet comfortable silence. "I don't even know where I got most of these."

Clear had jolted out of a small reverie of thought, of the young Aoba tearing the streets apart and painting the town red, his grin wicked and sadistic compared to his loving self today. There was once a time where he, too, was a beast, someone people feared day in and day out. Even his own grandmother was afraid of him at times, worried of what would come of his life as a test-tube child gone awry. When golden irises came to light in those unforgiving, forsaken alleyways, when people fell beneath his hand and Ren's attack, there was hatred and contempt for the man known as Sly Blue, even from the man himself.

"It's kind of weird. I guess it's like, it's my body, but then, I don't know what happened to make it the way it is— and you think I would, right? Not you, but like a hypothetical you. People." He was in a drowsy tangent, perhaps having awoken from a dream, from past glimpses into a lost life he endured and let go of. "Sometimes, I forget that I'm not... normal, I guess. No one knows what normal is, but I don't think it's me."

Never before had he heard such a comment from him, something bathed in years of low self-esteem and turmoil. Only now had the bitterness towards oneself uprooted and came into his life again, his eyes now a faded hazel shell of his former glory as a king of the wild streets. He scanned every inch of himself. He recalled faintly how much he used to loathe himself, how he'd accepted himself well enough until what happened to Mizuki, throwing him into brief suicidal ideation as he fell into a world of Scrap and Platinum Jail and Toue and _Sei_ and **_utter hell_** —

Clear worried for him. He was so scared that he'd see himself the way Clear looked at himself in the mirror, like an irredeemable monster. _Inhuman. **Unworthy.**_

"Ah, sorry." A disjointed laugh left Aoba's lips then. "I'm talking a bunch of nonsense, and we should be sleeping."

"It's okay." Clear spoke reassurance automatically, and he cradled his limp body in his arms, still from scrutinizing every ounce of himself. "I understand."

There was nothing until his friend, his lover, his family spoke out again. "I know. That's why I'm saying it. I think it's just, you know what I'm going through? We're not exactly born like other people, but I remember how human you are anyway, so... it helps." Aoba's lower lip nestled firmly between his teeth, and he chewed. "We both did some bad stuff, but it doesn't make us bad people."

Coming from him and not from his own mind, wallowing in the disgust of being made of metal and fuel, Clear couldn't argue it. His own programming, coded to brainwash and manipulate and _kill_ on command, was foul. Aoba was made to adhere to Toue's wishes, as well, albeit in an entirely different way, and his desires took a toxic turn. They'd both hurt other people and caused suffering, but they were both ultimately golden-hearted. They weren't perfect. They were _human_ , right? That was what made them human.

Was that it? Why he deserved his family, he thought, was this. He was as human as they were. Ren was not perfect either. Tae sure wasn't a saint. None of them were, and they'd been pulled into a crazy situation that seemed like a video game or a macabre fairy tale. They weren't the norm, the perceived norm that society shoved on its people with perfect smiles and luxurious houses, but that was okay, right? They didn't need that.

He didn't know what they were, but they were fine as is.

"Yes." Clear buried his nose into his shoulder, breathed in his scent (lilac and salty skin), and said, "You're right. We aren't bad people. We're just... us, aren't we? We're just us, Aoba-san."

He chuckled, genuinely and pleasantly, and ruffled silvery hair in his hand. "Yeah. We are."

Some days, he could forget his own inhumanity.


End file.
